Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix Review

Back in the early 1990's, the original Street Fighter II hit the arcades like
a new Civil War amongst arcade games, pitting friend against friend, father
against son and hardcore against scrub all to showcase who would be the top
fighter in their local arcade. The overall tight controls and competitive nature
that each game in the Street Fighter series brought with it helped to inspire
many other 2-D fighters that arrived afterwards. Super Street Fighter II Turbo
HD Remix is a remake of the classic Super Street Fighter II Turbo. Remix is
redone in HD graphics for the newer generation but it faithfully keeps all the
original gameplay that Street Fighter II fans are familiar with.

Upon startup, you'll be taken to the main menu showcasing an animation of Ryu
throwing a fireball, which gives you a little preview of the new art style.
Single player mode allows you to pick from arcade mode and training mode. Arcade
mode pits your chosen fighter against all other world warriors as your character
travels around the globe seeking battles until M. Bison is reached.

The new character animation is composed of drawings from the famed Street
Fighter artist team known as Udon and it looks fantastic. Each character has
been fully redrawn but just about all the animations remain the exact same.
Guile still performs his double sweep and Cammy still spins with the same
animation frames. This faithful animation scheme is so very important to a
hardcore fan that is familiar with the old Street Fighter games since all
classic animation is retained and a fan of the old game will be able to jump
right into the new game. The new artwork is basically layered over the older
Street Fighter II sprites for an incredibly clear HD look. The characters are
very sharp in appearance and the animations are fluid (though slightly limited
on purpose) while still keeping the same feel of the older Street Fighter II.
Backgrounds have been redrawn as well, but they all maintain just about the same
appearance as the original game. Ending pics are now completely redone. Some of
the character endings have completely changed from the original.

Before starting Arcade Mode, you'll have a choice of either HD mode or
Classic mode. HD mode mixes up the move list just a bit for each character by
offering some slightly changed commands or other tweaks to certain fighters. For
instance, Chun-Li's spinning bird kick will rise slightly into the air as she
arches upward then falls back down much like a flash kick. Some move inputs such
as Guile's super flash kick have been given different commands. Instead of
having to rotate the joystick to down-back after down-forward is entered, you
simply go straight to up-forward after the down-forward motion and then press
kick, so the new input in HD mode is
down-back/down/down-forward/forward/up-forward + kick. Whether this appeals to a
player or not really depends on how accepting you are to change. I really
enjoyed the new take on some of the classic fighters myself, so this was a nice
change of pace from the norm to me.

From the option menu, the old character models from the original game can be
chosen at any time. Simply change the option from "HD" to "Classic" to instantly
change your current character model back to the original look. This greatly
showcases how the game so faithfully keeps the same classic gameplay and overall
fighter animation intact from the original game. There is also an option known
as "Dip Switches" that allows you to mix and match various detailed setting
between HD and Classic mode. For instance, some special moves have a certain
frame that cannot be blocked and the option for having this in a battle can be
turned on or off from the Dip Switch settings. The truly hardcore fans of Street
Fighter are most likely the only ones that will get use out of this option
however.